Odisha FC on Wednesday announced the appointment of Gerald Peyton as their interim head coach till the end of the ongoing Indian Super League (ISL) season after sacking Stuart Baxter for his offensive post-match comments. Peyton -- who was an assistant coach to Baxter -- has served as goalkeeping coach at Arsenal and Fulham. As a player, his longest stints were with Fulham, Bournemouth and Burnley.
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"I have agreed to become the Odisha FC Interim Head Coach for the rest of the games, we have six games left. I am going to go with a lot of hard work that's been done already by myself and Stuart (Baxter)," Peyton said in a statement from Odisha FC.
"I am going to carry on and try and win as many games as possible with the young players, with the team that we have and the way we have been playing."
Peyton said his job will be to make sure that the team, who are currently bottom of the table with just one win from 14 games, shows fight, resolve and pride in every game. "Hopefully, we can give the fans a lot of good things to be proud of as we have been grateful for their support so far," he said.
On Tuesday, Odisha FC sacked Baxter with immediate effect and issued a public apology after the coach said, "One of my players will have to rape someone or get raped himself to get a penalty." The comments came after Odisha FC lost a tightly-contested match 1-0 to Jamshedpur FC on Monday, leaving Baxter displeased by the refereeing. Odisha made a late penalty claim after Diego Mauricio was tripped by TP Rehenesh in the penalty area but it was turned down by the referee.